Israel Desecrates Holy Sites According to The Economist

In recent years the Muslim Waqf responsible for administering the Temple Mount has removed piles of earth from the site dumping precious Jewish antiquities into the municipal trash, deliberately erasing the physical connections between the Jewish people and their holiest site.

Only last year there was an incident of vandalism by Palestinian Muslims of sacred Jewish objects at Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs.

But who is really threatening the sanctity of religious sites in the Holy Land? According to The Economist, it’s Israel.

The hook on which to hang this absurd charge is one incident of vandalism of David’s Tomb in Jerusalem by Jewish extremists and recent debates on allowing Jews to pray on the Temple Mount.

In fact, while the desecration of Jewish holy sites is, in the example of the Temple Mount, an officially sanctioned Palestinian activity, Israel has anchored in law the protection of all religious holy sites since 1967 and prosecutes those who are caught violating the law:

The Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places.

The Economist, however, writes:

A struggle over holy sites is as old as the land itself and today mirrors the divides between the predominantly Jewish Israelis and the mainly Muslim Palestinians as well as Israel’s 1.4m Muslim citizens. It has intensified of late. On February 25th Israeli police clashed with Palestinians on Temple Mount, a site in Jerusalem revered by all faiths. At the same time, the parliament debated—but did not vote on—a bill to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the site. The bill defies a tradition, dating to the 13th century, that says Jews should not tread on the hallowed ground. Although some Jews do not observe the tradition, the authorities ban them from praying there.

Some Palestinians, however, are now exploiting these visits to incite the Arabs and Muslims against Israel.

Throwing stones, empty bottles, shoes and petrol bombs at the Jewish visitors and the policemen accompanying them has become almost a daily practice.

This, in addition to regular demonstrations that are staged at the holy site, where protesters chant slogans against Israel, Jews, the US and even some “moderate” Muslims.

The protests are primarily aimed at dragging Arabs and Muslims into war with Israel under the pretext that the Jews are plotting to destroy the Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. The ultimate goal is to turn the conflict into a religious war between Jews and Muslims.

With this article, The Economist has evidently bought into this Palestinian strategy. Hardly a surprise when you consider this statement from an accompanying video interview with The Economist’s Middle East correspondent Nicholas Pelham:

One of the key demands of the Israeli government is for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state but I think that one of the key concerns the Palestinians have and Muslims per se is that this would actually allow Israel to further erode what’s historically a Muslim country with many Muslim holy sites and I think that it of great concern not just to Palestinians but Muslims around the world.

So, according to Pelham, Israel is “historically a Muslim country.” Small wonder that The Economist takes such a one-sided and backwards view of Jewish control over religious holy sites.

Send your considered comments to The Economist – letters@economist.com – remembering to include your mailing address and a telephone number in order stand a chance of publication.

“The smaller the difference, the greater the conflict.” Brother kills brother,in Genesis. If you wish, the farmer vs. the sheep herder. In the primate house of the Bronx Zoo, there is sign with an arrow pointing to the adjacent cage “the most dangerous animal alive.’ There is an open cage with a mirror, for the curious. Gil

Arabs including Philistines take pride in desecrating any other religious setting. The Economist should get its reporters off their behind & send them to Syria, Egypt, Iraq to see how lovingly Christian churches are safeguarded & Christian massacred & abused. Wake up….Philistines are but squatters in the land of Israel no ties to the land except as squatters. The British have carved up the Middle East. Most countries in the Middle East are no more than 100 year old. The British have lit a fire and walked away, now they a righteous as the Economist pretends. Integrity is non existent in the Economist pages.

Israel cannot consider the Temple Mount to be a Holy site and allow the abomination currently upon it. If it were considered a Holy site, Jews would worship upon it, not beside it. If the Temple Mount were considered a Holy site, Jews would govern it and not hand it over to foreign terrorists…………………….

You all know the truth, there is no reason to allow this dross talk to upset you. Be happy, This is the day the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it. We can celebrate the truth and ignore such banal comments so as not to allow anger to ‘fester’. Words cause great harm, words also proclaim the truth when spoken and written with intelligence. God bless Israel and the people of Israel.

You all know the truth, there is no reason to allow this dross talk to upset you. Be happy, This is the day the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it. We can celebrate the truth and ignore such banal comments so as not to allow anger to ‘fester’. Words cause great harm, words also proclaim the truth when spoken and written with intelligence. God bless Israel and the people of Israel.

first: there is no palestinian people, they changed the name of their entity after the 6 day war from transjordanians to palestinians
second; Israel respects all religions and their holy places not as the arabs that play soccer at their presumably holy place , eat and trow the garbage at the spot and dont care less for facts ook at youtube about it.
third: The name Palestine was given by the romans after they destroyed the temple in 70 A.C long before Muhammad was born , the economist writes its garbage because they have been bought with arab money as all media in the presumably western enlightened world, Europe as a whole is in constant fright because they have millions of arabs living in the european countries and are afraid that if they support Israel( do the right thing) the arabs will put bombs in their cities, well nothing has change since Hitler’s Holocaust , just the means and the outside manner of the european leaders and they will fall .

The mere presence of a Jew is considered a desecration. And so agrees the Economist. I find the Economist a desecration of the right of Journalism. The fact is they refused to even allow me to make a comment. The Temple Mount was Jewish long before the Muslims built their mosque over the Holy of Holiest. It would be best removed.

Compare the difference between the Isareli control (AND RIGHTFUL OWNERSHIP) of the sacred sights to that of the Jordanian and other arabs control before the 1967 and 1972 wars! The “Economist” and its Arab supporters/correspondants are just a bunch of SCHWEINEREI ARSCHLOCH SCHEISSEKOPFS so full of crap that they can’t even move from their office chairs. F**** all of them.
They should first of all clean out and care for their own houses before “moralising” others.

Paragraph 5 Article 21 of the Mandate for Palestine prohibits the removal of antiquities from the mandate of Palestine except by a competent department.Since the United Nations has inherited the legal and moral obligations of the League of Nations,where were its objections to the Arab desecration of the Temple mount ; as America is a signatory I would have expected President Obama to at least make mention of it on behalf of the American People? Oh I forgot, the capital of Israel is Tel aviv.

Those at ‘The Economist’ need to study history closer. Israels’ Jews have ancestry dating back OVER 2000yrs BEFORE the arabs and their ‘prophet’ claims to own Israeli land. (thats BEFORE islam, folks) This is DOCUMENTED FACT. The so called ‘palestinians’ are NOT entitled to a nation that never was. There never was ANY nation with recognized borders called Palestine. It was a geographic AREA much as ‘Central America’ is a geographic area. This is FACT.